


Books With Fake Beginnings

by anglophileprussian



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied Relationships, M/M, Minor Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge, Misunderstandings, References to Canon Abuse, References to canon relationships, Speculation, references to injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9850190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileprussian/pseuds/anglophileprussian
Summary: Veronica finally met Jughead Jones and learned two things:Jughead was weirdly, against all reason and common sense, exactly the kind of friend she never knew she wanted.And secondly, that Riverdale’s problems extend far beyond Jason Blossom.





	1. Chapter 1

There is no way to explain why she asks Jughead to go shopping with her on Saturday. She hadn't been thinking about asking: she was just as surprised as anyone when she heard the words come out of her mouth.

She's even more surprised when he shrugs and says, "Sure."

Looking back on it, it's likely that she'd done it out of some strange jealousy. Jughead, Archie and Betty all knew each other since they were kids and even though they don't mean to, she feels left out sometimes. Especially now that Jughead has joined them - an unknown variable if she's ever seen one. The rest she's gotten to know but Jughead is one big mystery.

Maybe it's also just a little bit because she hadn't known Archie and Jughead even knew each other and suddenly he was Archie's 'best friend'. No one likes being out of the loop.

"What about this one?"

Jughead is a surprisingly good shopping partner. She doesn't feel like she has to impress him, and everything he says is matter of fact, but not insulting. For the pink dress, he glances up from his phone and says, "Don't. It looks like you puked up pepto bismol."

He's not wrong. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he has sunk into the chair in the dressing room, curled uncomfortably into a ball with his feet dangling over. When she pulls the dress over her head to hang up, he isn't pretending to be disinterested.

Holding up two more dresses, she turns and asks, "Black or blue?"

He doesn't look up to answer. "Black is basically your signature color, isn't it?"

"I thought it was yours."

She can see the little uptick to his lips as he hides a smile and doesn't try to hold hers in. His too-cool act was a fake, just like she'd thought. It'd have to be for him and Archie to have been friends for so long.

"Can you zip me?"

He takes a moment to finish whatever he doing in his phone before hopping up to helps her into her dress. Smoothing it out with her hands, she asks, "What do you think?"

"I believe the term they use is 'hot'."

He says it casually, but he had that little smirk again that makes her think he's being sincere without seeming pushy. Definitely a good choice in shopping partner. He adds, "Archie was hoping I'd send him a picture. Wasn't too specific about what he wanted to see you wearing though."

That deserves a real laugh. "Unlikely, unless you got something when I wasn't looking."

"Nah. He can pay for his porn like everyone else."

"You think this," she waives at her half dressed figure, "is pornography?"

"Sure."

The dress really is good - she puts it into the hanger and brings it to the cashier to pay. Jughead hangs back, seemingly mildly interested in the clothes around him and poking occasionally through a rack.

"Food court?" Veronica offers once she's finished. It seems only fair. "My treat."

"How can I say no?” 

They don’t need to talk as they exit the store and walk around to the food court. Loud and full of strong, conflicting smells it wasn’t exactly her idea of fine dining, but Jughead visibly perked up as they passed a McDonalds towards the back of the seating area. Rolling her eyes, she feigns exasperation and orders three BigMacs with fries. 

“Not exactly Pop’s, but it’ll suffice,” she notes, digging into her first BigMac in quite a while. Pop’s had really spoiled her for burgers already. 

“It’s good enough for me,” Jughead says, as if she hadn’t just seen him shove an entire burger into his mouth. Seeing her disgusted expression, he grins widely to show the bits of food in his mouth as he chews. 

She slaps his arm. “Guys are so gross, why do you all do that?”

“We wouldn’t do it if you didn’t react like that.”

Thankfully, he eats his second burger at a more sedate pace. Seeing that he was in a good mood, Veronica decides it’s a good time to start asking questions. 

“How long have you known Archie and Betty? I’ve been imaging you all toddling around in diapers.”

“You’re not too far off.”

“And you and Archie have been best friends ever since. It’s so sweet.”

“Yes, why are you asking?”

Jughead clearly doesn’t believe her attempts at playing vapid and harmless, so she gives that up in favor of honesty. “Just trying to get to know you. You’re the only one of our little gang that I don’t know.”

“There’s not a lot to know.”

“Oh I don’t know about that. How about twenty questions?”

Burger gone, Jughead has turned his attention back to Veronica, and is watching suspiciously as she picks at their french fries. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Don’t you want to get to know me?”

“No.” She’d like to think he was lying, but Jughead was pretty good at hiding whatever he was really thinking. 

“What if I offer you a burger for every question?”

Twenty burgers did give him pause, but he still said, “Not worth it.”

Veronica huffs in annoyance, which makes Jughead smirk. And her want to smack him again. Her momentary irritation is strong enough to make her to do what she’d promised herself she would never do. 

“If you don’t agree I’m going to tell Archie what you were doing on the fourth of July.” 

It’s a weapon she’d been hoping to use only in emergencies (it was always good to know you can blackmail someone into helping you in a pinch) but she regrets saying it as soon as she sees how pale he becomes. Veronica Lodge, the new Veronica, is supposed to apologize for her momentary slip into her past bitchiness, but it feels a little too late for that. 

“That’s good,” he shifts in his seat, lets his hair fall into his face like he’s pulling into himself. “I was not expecting that. How did you find out?”

“Kevin told me, sort of. His father mentioned it to him.”

“Does anyone else know?”

At least this is something Veronica can reassure him on. “Definitely not. Kevin said his dad forgot to file a report because of everything happening with Jason. And Kevin swore he was never going to tell anyone.”

“Except you.”

“Except me,” she conceded. Kevin was not exactly discreet. “But now I can make sure he doesn’t spill. So I’m basically doing you a favor.”

“Sure.” Jughead is fidgeting with his straw, clearly ready to get this over with already. “For every burger you give me, you get one question.”

It’s clear that he’s already dreading this, but Veronica isn’t going to give up a chance to learn something about her new friend. Maybe blackmail wasn’t the best basis for relationships but she’d be able to make up for that. Later. 

She picks the first question that comes to mind. “What’s up with you and Betty? I mean, you guys look like friends but sometimes she’s suddenly …” Veronica can’t come up with a word other than “angry”. 

“A bitch?” Okay, that works too. “Now that she and Archie are a ‘no go’, she’s worried about what role she’s playing in his life. And with me and Archie are talking again, I’m her rival for best friend.” 

It seems a little childish to Veronica, who says, “But weren’t you guys all friends before?” 

“That’s a second question.”

“No,” she says. “You haven’t fully answered the first. I’m just helping you along.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s amused or irritated by Veronica’s stubborn refusal to give in. “Then yes. We were all friends since Kindergarten, but back then I was the best friend, not one of Archie’s romantic interests. Thus, no danger.”

He says it strangely, like he’s annoyed with Betty’s line of thinking. It’s what makes Veronica ask, “Were you? A romantic rival?”

Instead of getting annoyed, Jughead smirks and points down at his burger wrapper. “I already answered my question for the day.”

“I could buy you another one.”

“I wouldn’t take it. One a day is enough for me, I think.” He leans back in his chair, “They say they’re bad for you, you know.”

Laughing, Veronica says, “Fine. No more questions for today. Are we ready to go? I’ve done enough shopping today.”

It seems only fair to offer him an out after she’d made him agree to their stupid game. But, as Jughead follows her to the trash cans, he suggests, “I was actually thinking we could hit the bookstore downstairs.”

Definitely the first guy to look at her and think “bookstore”, but Jughead would never lower himself to be like other guys. He’s quirked his eyebrow so that it disappears under this hair and hat like he’s issued a challenge. It says, ‘I am not so easily beaten.’ 

While not perfect, this is definitely something Veronica can see herself getting used to: someone sharp and tough, the same way she had to learn to be back in New York. It’d been awhile since she’d felt like she could bitch and snark without everyone assuming she’d relapsed into her former self. “We can get coffee from the cafe to drink while we browse. Great idea.”

He offers his arm out to escort her, which she happily takes, leading them both despite not really knowing where the bookstore was. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter because Jughead is smirk-smiling and doesn’t seem likely to complain. 

 

They hadn’t intended on meeting up today but the whole gang was grabbing lunch at Pop’s and they were the first two to arrive. Given the opportunity, Veronica had paid for both their meals but now it was awkward, like both of them were waiting for Veronica to ask something. She almost regretted paying. 

“Boxers or briefs?”

Jughead raises a brow and pauses eating (a minor miracle in itself). “That’s your question?” 

“It’s a very important question. It says a lot about a guy.” 

“Fair,” he says, humoring her. “I’m a boxer man myself.” 

“Patterns or solids?” 

“That’s a second question.” 

“I’ll give you my onion rings.” 

He shrugs and grabs a handful. “Solid. Red today. I can show you if you’d like.” 

“Please.” 

This is how Betty and Archie find them: Veronica has slid into the booth next to Jughead, who has taken his pants half off to reveal his boxers. Neither acknowledges their friends arrival. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to be the kind of guy who splurges on underwear.” 

Jughead shrugs and Veronica reaches out to touch the fabric. “If it’s going to hold my dick all day, might as well get comfortable. Nice, right?”

“Very. They would make amazing sleep shorts.” 

“What… are you guys doing?”

Betty is looking the other way, as if merely glimpsing Jughead’s boxers were too much for her to handle. Archie just looked confused. 

Jughead smirks at his friend, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “Discussing our underwear preferences. Any thoughts?” 

“No, no thanks. You guys ordered without us?’

“We put in your orders, just need to go up and pay. We put in your usual,” Veronica promised. 

Betty says thanks but still doesn’t look their way, even after Jughead has pulled his pants back up again. As soon as she and Archie are out of earshot, the two burst into laughter. 

“You’re not half bad Lodge,” Jughead tells her.

“You too.”

 

Veronica’s plan to get to know Jughead is paused momentarily, energy now focused on the utter destruction of Chad and the football team. She knows he’s off investigating something with Betty, but she doesn’t pay attention until they’re handing her the article they’d written for her. Maybe that’s why she was so quick to notice he was acting strange. 

“Are you following me around now?” he asked. Raising an eyebrow, he pushes the door open for the men’s bathroom. When she comes in behind him, he adds, “This is the men’s room.”

That was worth an eye roll. “Gendered bathrooms are a joke, and we need to talk.”

The men’s bathroom was noticeably dirtier than the girl’s, but no worse than some of the club’s she’d visited in New York. He leans against the sinks and waits for her to begin. 

“Betty might not have noticed, but you’re totally hiding something. What do you know about Miss Grundy?”

Betty and Jughead had rushed over to tell Veronica about what they’d learned from the weird Boy Scout. Betty had been pink with excitement about the new development to the story but Veronica had noticed Jughead was distracted - that’s when she decided to confront him. 

“No burger?”

Obviously, Jughead was not interested in being helpful. “Not unless you want an STD. But seriously, this is important. If she’s the murderer and you know something, you have to come forward and tell someone.”

“Of course I would tell the police if I knew anything,” he snapped. Suddenly, he was glaring at her, but she didn’t understand what had made him angry. “A kid died: it’s no time to keep dumb secrets.”

“Then what’s your deal with Miss Grundy? Seems like as soon as she was mentioned, you were acting strange.”

“I thought I was always strange.”

“Jughead Jones.” She grabs his arm and keeps holding even. “What is going on?” 

Jughead looked away for a second towards the wall, deep in thought, before he signed and turned to her again. “I’ll tell you, but you need to swear that you won’t tell anyone.” 

“Of course.”

“No,” he stepped closer until they were only inches apart, staring intently at her. “You tell no one. Absolutely nothing about this conversation leaves this room, capisce?”

He looks serious, aged a decade suddenly and weary. He looked scared. “I promise,” she tells him, and tries to put into her tone how much she means it. 

Accepting her promise, he sighed loudly again. “Early this summer, Miss Grundy was driving one hot sunny afternoon and saw a man walking past her. She was … interested, and pulled over to chat. Batted her eyelashes and showered compliments. You can guess how that went.” 

“She slept with them?” Sure, Grundy was pretty in a plain sort of way, but preying on high schoolers? “Eww, how old is she?”

“Old enough that it's very illegal.”

“Why haven’t you reported it to the police?”

“Because it’s Archie.” He says it so quietly she can almost pretend she misheard him. “Archie has been sleeping with her since June. He thinks they’re dating and-, he’s totally gone on her. Ditched our road trip plans for the 4th of July to have a picnic with her by the lake.”

“Archie,” she pauses, trying to wrap her head around the idea, “was with Grundy when that kid saw her car?” 

“Yep. She’d convinced him not to come forward about the gunshot because they would have to admit they were together that day.”

It’s too much to even comprehend. Shocked, she stares blankly at her lap as Jughead jiggles his leg, shaking slightly with anxiety and stress. “She hid evidence from the police and… she’s sexually abusing her student. Archie isn’t even old enough to consent, even if she wasn’t his fucking teacher.”

“Fucking teacher. Good one.” Jughead sounds like he’s been hollowed out from the inside. She cannot imagine what it must have been like to have kept that secret to himself, knowing what she was doing to his best friend. If Betty was involved with something like that- Veronica swallows down the rising nausea and panic the mere thought brings her. 

“When did you find out?”

“I walked by her music classroom and saw them together. When I confronted Archie, he told me everything.”

Veronica had heard about things like this happening before, but she cannot think of anything comforting to say. The more she thinks about it, the worse it gets. 

“What if Grundy really is involved in Jason Blossom’s death?” What if they start to investigate and find out about her and Archie? What will Archie do if he finds out she might be involved? There are more questions that she does not say because she knows he’s already thought them through a thousand times himself. 

“I don’t know. God-” his voice wavers and his head droops. “I have no clue.” 

Veronica lets Jughead shake and panic with her, sitting by his side but no longer speaking, just so he has someone there with him. She wants to tell him about what happened with Betty and Chad, but she can see that he’s already ragged at the edges. She’s not sure he can take another hit.  
\--  
There are moments, on the good days when there isn’t some new horror to ruin their lives, Veronica likes to listen to Archie and Jughead argue. Betty seems completely immune, but Veronica likes seeing Archie like this, as if proximity to Jughead makes him quicker and more clever, more willing to tease. 

“The game is going to be exactly like every other stupid game this season. Why should I go tonight, in the freezing cold, just to watch you run back and forth the same as you do every game?”

“You’ve already got the hat and the gloves,” Archie teases, tugging at Jughead’s hat while his friend tries to bat his hand away. “All you need is a jacket and you’ll be perfectly dressed for an evening of watching me run back and forth.” 

“I didn’t bring a jacket,” Jughead argued, “because I wasn’t expecting to be out tonight. And it’s kind of the most important part.”

“You can borrow my jacket. It’s not like I need it on the field.”

Veronica raises an eyebrow and Betty gapes. Archie has been pretty much inseparable from his letterman’s since he got it, but he’s apparently happy to loan it out now. Even Jughead looks a little floored. But Archie doesn’t notice, steering them over to his locker and pulling out the jacket in question.

“It’s not exactly my style,” is what Jughead says as he takes it. It’s impossible what Jughead is thinking, but Veronica has a guess: letterman’s jackets were for girlfriends, not dorky best friends. And in bright yellow and blue, it was considered a screaming notice of possession. Which Archie was handing over to his best friend with a real, honest, clueless smile. 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to care for superficial stuff like that,” Archie says, waiting patiently for Jughead to pull the jacket on. They’re the same height but Jughead is smaller in build so the jacket looks big, just like they usually do on girls half their boyfriends size. 

Jughead is still looking at the jacket, thumbing the cuffs as he says, “This level of aesthetic cannot be achieved by chance: I put a lot of work into this look.” It’s hard to take his comments seriously when he is so clearly pleased, though he is trying to hide it - badly. Betty looks suspicious and Archie looks fond. 

“I think it works.”

Jughead smiles at his friend for a moment, genuine, before hiding his feelings again. But they all see it - it has Archie smug in his victory, finally closing his locker so they can leave. It reminds Veronica, for some reason, of their conversation about Miss Grundy earlier that week: Jughead had said that Archie was totally gone on the woman, unable to listen to reason. But maybe, Veronica thinks, Archie isn’t so totally gone on her after all. 

 

“Looks like you came after all,” she teases Jughead before the game. He’s hiding in the shadows of the bleachers but she spotted him pretty easily: she just waited to see where Archie was looking. Cheryl is probably yelling at her to get back onto the field, but that hardly matters. “What changed your mind? You were pretty adamant when I asked.”

Jughead is obviously embarrassed turns a little pink, which is absolutely adorable. “I don’t have to answer that,” he reminds her, an attempt at sounding unaffected. 

“You don’t,” she concedes. The shouting from Cheryl is now joined by the other cheerleaders, so it’s probably really time to go. Of course, she doesn’t leave without one parting shot. “But I was pretty sure that if I told Archie to ask you to come, you’d agree. Looks like I was right.” 

It’s hard to tell if he’s surprised she manipulated him. “Jerk.”

“Thank you.” It’s certainly not the worst thing she’s been called in her life. “Enjoy the game.” 

She comes back for their first routine with a shit eating grin, smug as anything. Her self satisfaction only grows every time she glances into the stands and sees her friend trying to hide out of sight and failing, bright letterman’s jacket clearly visible from the field. 

 

“Why aren’t you sitting with your friends?” Jughead asks bluntly as soon as she comes up to his table. 

“I am. You’re my friend.”

He does not look impressed, but he lets her sit without further complaint. Veronica isn’t quite ready to really talk about the whole ‘slut shaming’ incident, or Archie’s frequent disappearances to canoodle with Grundy, especially since she wasn’t supposed to know about the Grundy thing. And she definitely didn’t want to talk about what had happened in the pool house with Betty.

Jughead was not much of a talker in general, so she wasn’t surprised when he put his headphones back in and started typing at his computer again. She’d brought a book, so she had something to read to pass the time but ‘A Handmaiden’s Tale’ wasn’t really holding her attention. After a few minutes of staring blankly at the same sentence, she admits defeat and turns to Jughead to distract her. 

“Jug.”

“What?” He doesn’t sound too happy to be interrupted. 

“Are you working on your novel?”

This, at least, is deemed an appropriate question to interrupt his writing because he pulls his headphones down around his neck and actually looks at her. “Yeah.”

“Betty said that you’re writing about Jason’s death. Why?” 

Perhaps no one had ever asked him that before, she thought, because he seems surprised at the question. “Why?”

“‘In Cold Blood’ has already been done. I would think you’d want to do something of your own.” 

“That’s true,” he admits. One hand comes up and brushes at his bangs that fall in his face. “‘In Cold Blood’ was good for its time, but that’s not really the angle I’m going for.” 

“That’s what you’ve been telling everyone.”

He shrugs. “It’s easier than trying to explain.”

Leaning forward a little, Veronica can look at his laptop screen and see pages of writing in a word document. He pulls his computer away before she can try and read any of it. 

“Would you read me some of it?” 

“No, why would I do that?”

“Archie plays his music for us all the time, even when it’s not finished. I thought writers wanted people to hear their stories.” 

“Not yet.”

Veronica sighed dramatically so he would know she was exasperated by his behavior. “I’ll give you my pudding cup if you at least tell me what it’s about.”

“Hm.” He looks at her, obviously considering the trade. “Your chips too.”

Chips were one of the only reliably edible things Riverdale High served at lunch. Biting her lip, Veronica pushed both the pudding and chips to his side of the table. She could get a snack before practice, she promised herself. Jughead snatched them up before she could reconsider her choice. 

Instead of taking her spoon, Jughead bent the cover of the pudding cup and used it to scoop up his dessert. It was messy and a little disgusting. Catching her expression, he smirks and starts smacking his lips loudly. 

“Your story?” She reminds him. 

He finishes the pudding and rubs the chocolate off his face with the back of his hand. “Everyone thinks that July 4th was the day that Riverdale changed but it wasn’t. I don’t know when it was - maybe last semester, when Polly was sent away, maybe years ago even. But something happened, and nothing has been the same since. I’m just trying to find it.” 

Veronica had never been in Riverdale before this August - she knows nothing about what Riverdale might have been. The stories she’s heard from Kevin and Betty and Archie always make it seem like everything was perfect before July 4th but it wasn’t - couldn’t have been. Despite what everyone was saying, high school had brought changes for all of them: just this summer had inspired Betty to finally make her move after what sounds like years of pining. Archie had apparently already involved with Miss Grundy - how had all of this happened? And was Jason a product of a symptom of this new Riverdale?

“Wow” It’s a pointless thing to say but it’s the first thing she blurts out. 

“Yeah.” He looks serious, like he sometimes gets when he’s thinking too much. Usually someone tries to distract him but she can’t stop thinking about Betty and Polly, Betty and Archie. Jughead puts his headphones back in and goes back to writing. 

 

It never occurred to her that Betty might know about Jughead’s secret too. And Betty and Jughead had been getting along so well too; the two of them working on the paper together with no glares exchanged or arguments started. The fallout of Archie and Grundy was still ongoing, and Veronica felt guilty that she hadn’t said anything sooner and if she felt awful, Jughead must feel worse. And Archie, he was giving them all whiplash, one day hiding in his house and the next pretending that nothing had happened. Today, he was going out to the movies with them and Veronica made the mistake of suggesting they see something in IMAX.

Betty then said: “But Jughead can’t come then. You can’t do a lot of flashing lights for a few months after a concussion without a serious migraine.”

She isn’t even looking up when she says it, trying to find something in her purse as everyone around her reacts. Jughead stiffens, and looks genuinely terrified - of what, she doesn’t know. She and Kevin are staring at each other, horrified by the car crash they’re about to witness, completely unable to do anything to stop it. And Archie, he isn’t stupid. He’s oblivious, and not always the perfect friend, but when it was least convenient, he could read his friend like a roadside billboard 

He’s staring at Jughead. “When did you get a concussion?”

“Over the summer, but it was no big deal.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it? When was this?”

“It was nothing,” Jughead repeats, but his voice is too off for anyone to believe him. 

“Then you can tell me what happened.” 

Archie has been stepping forward towards Jughead, cornering him - intentionally or not - on the side of Betty’s bed. And Betty has clearly noticed that she’s said something she shouldn’t have, and was looking desperately at Veronica and Kevin to figure out what was happening. 

“Archie,” Veronica says, trying to divert his attention. He probably doesn’t realize it, but Archie looks like one of the football jocks who like to toss Jughead into lockers at school. “Archie!”

Turning around to glare at her, Archie snaps, “What?”

No one says anything, just staring at him in shock. It was painful to look at him, his face a war between confusion, hurt and betrayal. The idea of his best friend lying to him was so foreign to Archie, even after his own lies that summer. The fracture created by Miss Grundy deepened until it looked like their friend would break. 

As if only then realizing what was happening, Archie turns slowly to face his friend. His friend, who was staring expressionless at him, but who was also holding the bedpost in a fierce, white knuckled grip. 

“Jug.”

“I need to go” Jughead’s voice cracks. “Please.” 

It’s impossible to guess what Archie is thinking in that moment, but Veronica isn’t thinking about him. “Maybe Betty’s right Jug. A movie might be a bad idea right now.” She pulls on her best fake smile and pushes through the tension in the air. “You should probably head home. You want me to walk you back? We can stop at Pop’s to grab you a burger on the way.” 

It’s impossible to miss that feeling in the air, filling all of them with the horrible feeling of wrongness. Veronica wasn’t supposed to be the one to step up and help Jughead. Everyone is looking at Archie, knowing that this was not the way things were supposed to go. It gets worse when Jughead slips around Archie and grabs Veronica’s hand so tight she can feel his bones. He follows her out the door, compliant as a child and totally silent, and they walk a few blocks until she finds them a bench to sit on. 

Jughead collapses in on himself, curls up and buries his head against his legs. She can tell by his shaking shoulders he’s started to cry, though he doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t even seem to remember she’s there. 

It’s not easy, but Veronica forces herself to walk away. Jughead and her are alike in many ways, and she knows she could never let anyone see her cry like that. She walks the few blocks to Pop’s and gets a burger for Jughead: Pop’s gives her a milkshake too and says it’s on the house as soon as she mentions it’s for Jughead. With the food in hand, she walks all the way back to that bench. 

She sits down next to him and announces in a perky voice, “Pop’s. As promised.” 

Snorting wetly, Jughead rubs his arm against his face while taking the bag from her with his other hand. “What question have you got this time?” 

“No questions. I asked mine already today.” 

He stills and she takes the opportunity to steal some of his fries. He’s hiding his face but she can tell it’s red and ruddy from tears. “I don’t think that that counted as a question.”

“Which one of us makes the rules here,” she reminds him, poking his hand with a fry. “If I say it’s a question, then it’s a question.” 

After a shaky sigh, he pulls out the burger and begins unwrapping it even though his hands are shaking still. Veronica knocks their knees together and leans against his shoulder, pretending not to notice. 

 

Betty has been baking all morning. Since 6AM, according to her mother, who had let her into the house for once out of desperation. Apparently, Betty was scaring her. 

“You must… really want cookies,” Veronica says with her most casual tone. Every surface in their living room is covered in patches of parchment and cookies. Every cookie is neat and perfectly made, though the icing seem to exude anxiety in their swirls. 

“They’re not for me. They’re for Jughead. Do you think he’d prefer mint or peanut butter blossoms?”

“I don’t think he’d care. Are these all for Jughead?” 

Betty, back turned to put flour back into the pantry, says, “Yes, so don’t eat them.”

A cookie already in her mouth, Veronica swallows it as discreetly as possible. Unsurprisingly, Betty is a fantastic baker. 

“I think even Jughead would say that this is maybe too many cookies.”

“I know,” Betty admits, a hint of childish frustration in her tone. “But I need to apologize and I can’t stop thinking about how he looked when he left. And when I think about Jughead I-”

“Make more cookies?” Veronica guesses. “Well, baking is a better coping mechanism than a lot of others, I think you’re going to run out of flour soon.”

Betty is already mixing another bowl, which she lowers sheepishly when faced with Veronica’s stare. “That’s when you do the no-bakes. We still have oats left over…”

“You are terrifying, and talented.” Veronica isn’t sure which one she is right now honestly. “But you need to stop. Your mom called me. Me, Betty.”

“Oh. Yeah that’s-” Betty finally puts down the bowl. The idea that her mother would willingly call Veronica was too bizarre to imagine. 

“I’m sure Jughead will accept your apology, cookies or no cookies.” Walking forward, Veronica leaned against the counter beside Betty, bumping their hips. “You didn’t know he hadn’t told Archie.”

“Why hasn’t he?” Betty asked quietly. “Why would he keep something from his best friend for this long?”

“From what I’ve heard, things got messy this summer. They weren’t talking to each other until pretty recently, so maybe it just never came up?”

“Jughead and Archie used to do everything together. I was really jealous,” Betty admits. “At first I was kind of glad they weren’t talking anymore because that meant Archie might pay more attention to me but, it’s too weird. It’s not right.”

Veronica had never expected to hear Betty say that out loud. “What do you mean?”

“Jughead used to live at the Andrews’ house. When I tried to find Archie to hang out, I knew I should check at the comic store or in Jughead’s tree house. But we got to high school and… Archie stopped defending Jug from Moose and his gang, and Jug stopped hanging out with me and Kevin along with Archie. And like, we’re really glad Jughead is talking to all of us again, but everything’s still… different.”

“Sometimes it’s good to be different.”

“Maybe. But hey,” Betty turns to face Veronica and suddenly they’re only inches away from each other. “Thanks for looking out for Jughead. With everything happening and whatever happened with Archie, I’m glad someone is looking out for him.”

“Wow.” That was definitely not what Veronica had expected. From everything she’d seen, Betty and Jughead had a complicated relationship at the very least. But apparently they were closer than she’d thought. “Yeah, of course. No thanks required.” 

Betty put the half mixed cookie dough into the sink, along with the rest of her used cookware. “Want to come with me to deliver all these?”

“Of course.” 

 

It’s only 8 in the morning, but they find Jughead at the first place they look - Pop’s. He’s sitting in the same seat as always, typing at his laptop in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. There was no way he’d slept since they’d last seen him. 

Veronica knocks on the table like she’s asking to come in. “Hey. Jug. Can we talk for a minute?”

He doesn’t look at them and types. “What?”

“I came to apologize.” When he doesn’t change expressions, Betty holds up the bags of cookies she’d brought. “With cookies.”

This is apparently sufficient to get his attention- he pulls his laptop towards him, a sign of permission for them to sit down. Jughead takes the bags from Betty, glancing into them. “Did you rob a bakery?” 

“I wasn’t sure what kind you liked.” 

“Right.”

Jughead doesn’t take anything out of the bags, resting them on the bench beside him. It’s unnerving when he looks at them: the bags under his eyes have darkened; his expression looks even more exhausted. Sure, he’d always had that tortured artist thing going for him, but it’s starting to look less like an aesthetic and more like a cry for help. 

And Jughead doesn’t do anything but stare. Betty, waiting a few minutes for him to say something, has to begin. “I’m sorry about what I said last night. I didn’t know Archie didn’t know. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Veronica is surprised when Jughead says, “There was no way you could have known. None of this is your fault.” 

This is not what Betty was expecting either. “But-, Archie was angry. You’re fighting again, and it’s my fault.”

“The remains of Archie and I’s relationship has nothing to do with you.”

‘Remains’ makes Betty’s expression fall even more, the opposite of what she wanted to hear. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I know. You and Archie were supposed to go off into the sunset, holding hand, with me in the back holding your bags.” 

Betty recoils as if slapped. “That was uncalled for,” Veronica tells him. She’d mistaken Jughead’s ambivalence for apathy, but apparently he was going for the jugular, and Betty was too easy a target.

“He doesn’t mean that,” Betty tells her, even as her voice waivers. “He knows that’s not true. He’s upset.”

“Oh I am. Thanks, I didn’t know.” Jughead rolls his eyes. His eyes are sharper than she’s ever seen. “Betty has done nothing wrong. Ever. Right Veronica?”

His words feel like ice in her veins. She had never told Jughead about her own feelings about Betty, but clearly he knew. He knew that the slightest mention would be enough to scare her, and that’s what he wanted to do. Wanted them all miserable like him.

“Betty and I came here to apologize and make sure you were okay. We get you’re upset but you don’t have to be a bitch about it,” Veronica tells him sternly, trying to not get angry. 

And Jughead laughs. It’s cruel sounding, and when he opens his eyes to look at them again it looks like there are tears building in his eyes. “Did Betty tell you about finals week last semester?”

“Finals?” Betty repeated. Apparently, Betty didn’t know what he was talking about. Jughead didn’t seem surprised.

“Beginning of finals week last year, you were the first person I came out to. Do you remember that?”

Betty didn’t appear to know where this was going. “You told me you were asexual, yeah.” 

“Do you remember what you said?” 

“No? I didn’t know what it meant then but you explained it to me…”

“You told me that you were relieved. That you’d been worried that I had a crush on Archie, but now you didn’t have to worry. Archie would want to date a normal person”

Oh. Betty looks embarrassed, but Veronica can tell Betty doesn’t understand what she’d said. “Betty…” she says helplessly. 

“What?” Betty does not help her case by sounding defensive. 

“Asexuals have feelings like everyone else. They’re not sexually attracted to people but you can’t… saying he’s not a normal person is not okay.”

Betty is now embarrassed, angry, and a lot of other emotions that flicker in her expression. Veronica feels bad for her friend, who never meant to hurt anyone and, as a result, had a hard time accepting when she had. “I didn’t mean it like that obviously.” 

“You said it. Archie could never have feelings for me because he’s normal, and wants a normal heteronormative relationship with you.”

“I didn’t mean that! I didn’t say anything like that!”

“But that’s what you meant,” Jughead challenged. “You were relieved that I wasn’t your competition. My homoexual wiles couldn’t turn him away from you because I didn’t have a chance.”

“Stop it!” Betty stood up, shaking the table. “I’m sorry about what I said last year, even though I didn’t know it was wrong then. But you do NOT get to blame everything on me.”

“You were the one who chose to not tell Archie about your accident. You had a fight with Archie that had nothing to do with me, and you don’t want to admit it! You just want to blame everything on me but it’s not my fault.” She stopped suddenly when she realized Jughead had turned away towards the window, was shaking with silent sobs. The anger in her expression drained away almost completely. 

“I’m sorry…..you can keep the cookies for you and your sister. Veronica?” 

There is nothing Veronica could do. Standing up helplessly for a few moments, she hesitantly walks out with Betty, hand in hand. 

 

“Archie?” 

Veronica has only just gotten back home, having stood awkwardly next to Betty as Mrs. Cooper interrogated them about their trip out. But Archie had a talent for the absolute worst timing, didn’t he?

“Hey. Can we talk?” 

Archie looks as bad as the rest of them: his eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep and what was likely some serious crying. For some reason, he’s brought his dog Vegas with him. 

“Your dog?” she asks, already resigned to yet another horrible conversation. “He can’t come into the house.”

“Oh.” Archie looks surprised to see he’s holding a leash. “I’ll-, I’ll tie him up: is that okay?”

“Whatever. Just hurry up: I need coffee.”

Tired he may be, Archie managed to secure his dog to the railing and follow Veronica into the kitchen without incident. When Veronica asks Smithers to put a bowl of water out for Vegas, Archie even gives a quiet “thanks”. 

“What do you need?” Veronica asks, coffee maker set to brew. “I have had a hellish day already and it’s only,” she squints at the clock on the oven. “10AM.”

Archie has sat himself at the island on one of their stools, head bowed to look at the counter. He starts talking after a few moments wait. 

“I called the Jones house, but it was disconnected or something. And when I went by their house, there was an old couple living there. Said that the Joneses had moved out when Mr. Jones lost his job.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. That was a surprise” Archie’s body moves like he’s trying to laugh and it’s not working. “I tried his cell, but it keeps telling me it’s out of service. He’s not at Pops. And usually I’d try the Drive-In, but that’s not really an option anymore.”

There, at least, was something Veronica could explain. “That’s partially my fault, and Betty’s. Betty and I went by to apologize. It didn’t go well.”

“Jug doesn’t like apologies.”

The kitchen is quiet as the coffee maker ceases to hum. First taking a sip of it black just to shock herself awake, Veronica goes about adding cream and sugar while Archie, presumably, continues to study the counter. When she’s finished, Veronica asks, “Why did you come here? Because if you’re looking for sympathy, I’m not the right choice.”

“No.” This does make him laugh, which is a little offensive. She’s great emotional support. “I asked Pop Tate, I asked Betty, I even tried calling Kevin, but no one will tell me what happened to Jughead.”

“And you think I will?” 

“I had to try. Next stop would be Kevin’s dad, and that’s not a conversation I’m excited for.”

Archie had been avoiding outsiders for days, occasionally including his friends. She was pretty surprised he’d go out to see the Sheriff, of all people. “And after that?” she asks, curious.

“Mrs. Cooper. That’s probably where Betty heard about it, right? Maybe I could convince her to tell me about it…”

“You’d ask Mrs. Cooper?” No one talks to Mrs. Cooper if they can help it. 

“It’s still better than having to ask my dad to help. He still doesn’t know me and Jug had a falling out.” 

It’s crazy, because Veronica can tell that Archie means everything he says. He’s prepared to spend his weekend asking everyone in town to figure out what happened to his friend, even when he’s still trying to process what’s happened to him. It doesn’t even occur to him not to. Looking at him now, it’s impossible to imagine Jughead and Archie as anything other than best friends - essential to each others life. Like a glimpse of what they were before. It’s the only reason Veronica speaks.

“Jughead was in a car crash, late the night of the 4th of July. That’s how he got the concussion. No other significant injuries though, I think.” 

The slumped form of Archie Andrews in her kitchen tenses, but his face is still hidden from view. “What happened?”

“He’s never told me, but I have a guess. Want to hear it?” He says nothing, and Veronica goes on anyways. “He was supposed to meet up with his best friend Archie because they were going on a roadtrip together. Probably waited around all day, wondering where Archie was, worrying that something that happened. And then maybe he got a text, telling him that Archie actually couldn’t go after all. Or maybe he didn’t even get a text - I don’t know. What I do know is that early the morning of the 5th, a jogger called the police station and reported a crash on Maple Street, with an unconscious boy inside.” 

“Sheriff Keller was the one who went out to the scene, checked him out. No serious injuries thankfully, but the airbags had given him some serious bruises and a major concussion, bad enough to knock him out cold until they found him the next morning. A tow was called, and Keller was driving him to the hospital when they got the call about Jason Blossom. In the rush, Keller had to bring him to the lake and ask him to walk home. Everyone forgot about the accident with the frenzy of the investigation, and he never went to the hospital. So no record - no one knows.” 

Archie raises his head for the first time and glares at her, more angry than she’d ever seen, even angrier than yesterday night. “You guys did. Why did you know?” 

“Kevin knew because he was there when his dad got the call. He told me by accident, but we couldn’t tell anyone else. We didn’t even know Betty knew anything until yesterday, I guess her mom got a tip on it somehow. We weren’t trying to keep it from you.” 

“Except he was,” Archie pointed out. “He chose to not tell me. I get that we were fighting but how could he ever think I wouldn’t need to know about that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know everything that happened with you two.”

“Really? I thought Jughead told you everything these days.”

Putting the cup down, Veronica asked with surprised, “Are you jealous that I’m friends with Jughead now? Really?”

“I know.” Archie at least had the decency to sound embarrassed. “It’s stupid. It’s just- growing up, Jughead didn’t have a lot of friends he was really close to. It was just me and him and-, I guess I got used to being the one he stuck with.”

“So you’re jealous.” 

“I guess. I know he’s allowed to have other friends.” 

“Can I ask a question?” Archie shrugs and nods ‘yes’. “Did something happen between you guys this summer?” 

It takes him a while to answer. “It’s funny. I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks and like, yeah, the 4th of July thing was big, but it felt like we just … fell apart. Like, end of freshman year and I’d catch him looking at me like he didn’t recognize me. When I started working with my dad and had this” he waved at his body, “growth spurt thing, it seemed like he didn’t like who I was becoming. Then, I met someone who seemed to actually see me and like me for who I was and that-... yeah. Wasn’t what I thought, but still - by 4th of July, I couldn’t stand seeing how far apart we’d become and I kind of just… ran away.” 

“Did you ever try to talk to him, before the 4th?” 

“No.” Typical guys, Veronica thought, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t know how. Me and Jughead always understood each other. We never had to ask about things like this.”

“Friendships change,” she told him, unable to help thinking of Betty and Jughead, old friends who now shouted and hurt each other. “Sometimes they turn into… something else.” 

“But I don’t want that. I need Jughead back,” Archie told her, completely sincere and stupid in every way. 

“It doesn’t always work like that. Maybe you should think about why you need him so much - it might help you decide what to do.”

“Do what?” 

“It’s up to you. But you can’t keep pretending nothing’s changed because it has. Everything is different now and we have to live with that. Even if it means you lose your old best friend.” 

Archie, curled up on himself a little and shaking - probably crying, since that was the trend of the day. It was a sight pitiful enough to move Veronica to turn on the kettle and make her friend a hot chocolate. It was from a packet, but she never claimed to be a chef. He thanked her again, and drank it slowly before telling her he’d be heading home. 

 

Veronica had started the burger business as a way of learning something about Jughead. Weirdly, when she sees Archie next, he’s the one who has been doing the digging. Even best friends have something to learn, apparently. 

“Jughead’s avoiding me,” Archie tells her as soon as she sits down at their lunch table. The expressions on Betty and Kevin’s faces imply that he’s been talking about this for a while. 

“Okay, so? Give him some time.”

“I get that. Really,” he adds at their disbelieving stares. “Do you guys know where he moved to last year?”

Clearly this was news to everyone. “Did he move?” Betty asks. 

“He isn’t at his Mom’s old place - Chief Keller says she moved to live with her sister in the city, and brought Jellybean with her. Thought that Jughead was living with his dad.”

“And he isn’t?”

“No clue. He wasn’t always around when we were growing up because of the Snakes.”

“Wait, Jughead’s from Southside?” Kevin asked. When they all looked at him, he adds, “Why would I know where he lives? I’m just surprised. I’ve never seen him with the Snakes.”

“He’s not like that,” Archie snaps out, “Southside’s just a neighborhood.” 

“We know that Archie,” Betty says, voice gentle. “We’re just surprised. I thought he lived a few streets from us.” 

“He moved around a lot, but he’d always tell me. I guess that’s changed.” 

They all look across the lawn to where Jughead was sitting alone, back facing the rest of the student body. Feeling their eyes on him, he glances over for a moment before turning away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has not been Archie Andrew's day. Or month. And the way things were looking, if he didn't try to fix things, it would be a pretty bad year too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank EVERYONE for their amazing comments. You have made me the happiest fanfic writer on earth, so I was determined to get this out as soon as I could. Especially bc i feel like a horrible person: this is archie's POV. I KNOW you all were so excited to see Jughead and Veronica's relationship and i promise that they are the main focus of the next (hopefully last) chapter. i just think that it's important, in fic about jughead and archie together, to establish not only how archie has gotten to a point where he's a) emotionally okay post-grundy and b) make their relationship not seem onesided. he's been a bit of a jerk on the show so far so i want to establish he deserves Jughead. 
> 
> please don't hate me. take my Jellybean as consolation

There was this project they had to do for school in like, 5th grade. Everyone had to write something and the best submissions would go into this yearly book the school made. The teacher made it seem like a big deal, so everyone tried to get in. And Archie’s had been chosen, sure, but everyone remembered Jughead’s best. He'd written a story about a boy walking through the woods, singing, on the way home. It was only a few paragraphs long but Archie still remembered the end: the boy had stopped singing for a moment and realized that the trees were singing along with him. Some monster had been following the boy so the trees made it seem like there were people with him.

It had scared the crap out of Archie and the other kids in their grade. In 8th grade, Jughead had found the old journal in some old stuff and showed it to his friend. 

“I don't think I'll ever be that good again,” he'd said. 

Archie had assumed he was joking. But there was something about the dumb stuff you make as a kid that you can never recreate. No clue how you did it, but you can do amazing things as a kid that, as a teen, you're too messed up to make again. 

This is, Archie assumes, what Veronica meant when she told him to decide what he was going to do about him and Jughead. Being neighbors had been enough when they were 4, but everything at 16 was way too complicated.

 

For all that Jughead played like he was mysterious, Archie knew him pretty well, even after their fight. A little Google, his dad’s car, and he knew where to find him. Thank God for the name Jellybean. 

He’d never been to Greendale Middle School before, but he could find the auditorium pretty easy just by following the streams of parents. He bought two tickets and headed back out of the building to find the back of the auditorium. 

Archie grins as he turns the corner Jughead comes into view. His friend doesn't notice him until he says, “Hey Jug. Show’s starting soon.”

Jughead jumps and turns from the backstage door he's been peeking through. “Shit Archie. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Jellybean got the lead this time,” Archie holds up the bouquet of flowers he'd picked up on the way. “Didn't want to miss it.”

“Right.” Jughead turns back to look into the building, trying to look casual and failing. His shoulders were tense because he knew Archie was watching. 

Archie just followed. “There are better seats inside. Jellybee will flip if she sees you in the audience.” 

Jughead turns to argue but stops short when he sees Archie holding up two bright yellow tickets. Archie doesn't expect a response, but he grinned smugly as Jughead followed him back around and through the front door. The pouting continued on until the lights in the auditorium dimmed. 

Archie had seen hundreds of Jellybean Jones performances in his life, from the dress up games she'd made them play to her first time on the kindergarten stage. When she came on stage and started singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, he and Jughead turned to each other to exchange proud grins just like they had at every one of her other performances. For a moment, it was like nothing had changed - how had he risked this? What could have been worth losing all of this, missing performances by Jellybean Jones, secret grins with his best friend?

When the lights are out, nothing can hurt them. And when Jellybean spots them in the audience and breaks character to grin at them both, Archie finally feels like he may not have to lose everything. That they’re not over quite yet.

 

Earlier that day he’d come home, lost in thought as he tried to come up with another way to find his friend. That alone was enough to make him jump when his father suddenly spoke from nearby.

“Did something happen between you and Jughead?”

It was a strange time for Fred Andrews to suddenly recognize something had happened between Jughead and his son but there he was waiting for him, beer in one hand as he leaned against the kitchen counter. 

After lying to his father for months, knowing where that got him, Archie didn't want to lie so he shrugged and said, “Kinda,” like it was no big deal. 

“Some of my guys found a cot in the drive through store room. They thought one of the Southside kids left it there, but I can put two and two together and make four. Did you know he was living at the drive through?”

Sometimes the answer was right in front of you: overthinking strikes again, Archie told himself. He groaned and dropped his bag on the ground, suddenly full of regret and disgust with himself. “I can't believe I skipped the last show at the drive through. How do I always mess this up?”

“Does that mean you didn't know?”

“Of course not!” It's ridiculous that his father would think he’d learn Jughead was homeless and not invite him to stay with them. “I found out he moved a week ago but we couldn't figure out where he went.”

The two Andrews men stared at each other in the kitchen, all too aware of the absence of what had once been a permanent fixture in their home. 

Fred Andrews reached out to pull his son over towards him, slinging an arm around him. His voice had all of the guilt Archie was feeling. “Why did we let him leave when he said he was staying with his father. We should have checked up on him.”

“I know.” Archie did not need his dad pointing out things he hadn’t been able to forget. “We got into this fight over the summer and didn't talk to each other again until a few weeks ago. If I hadn’t been such a jerk he might have told me himself.”

“We don't know that, so you can't beat yourself up about it now. You just have to make it up to him now. Friends fight sometimes, but best friends know how to make things right again.” 

Fred Andrews is rarely wrong about this sort of thing, but Archie knows this time is different. He takes the offered hug though because, if he’s learned nothing else that he’s learned these past few weeks, it’s that while his dad’s hugs don’t solve anything, they sure don’t hurt. 

 

Which is how Archie had gotten the courage to come to Jellybean’s show. He could have invited Betty or the others to diffuse the tension but that would be like cheating. When Jellybean, oblivious to their discomfort, asked if they were going to get celebration sundaes like they always did, Archie put on his best smile and agreed like nothing had changed.

Now, sat across each other in one of Pop’s booths, they were transported back in time to a world where nothing had changed, nothing had soured. Jellybean was eagerly digging into her sundae and smiling at them both, preteen moodiness put to the side for childish excitement. It makes Archie feel guilty and he doesn’t even know why. 

“You look different,” Jellybean told him. She had the same teasing lilt to her voice as her brother as she gave him a blatant onceover just to see him react. Archie, always weak against the Jones’ tricks, felt himself turn red all over. The siblings smirked at him. 

“I was working with my dad all summer.”

“That’s no excuse. Let me guess: you’re all popular, football jock now.Girls fight for your attention.” 

“Pictures of you in their locker,” Jughead added. 

“Hearts drawn on their eyelids.”

“Boys see you walking down the hall and think, I want to b-”

Archie interrupted, well aware that those two could go on for forever if not stopped. “You were fantastic up there. You’re really getting good.” 

“I wasn’t before?” 

“There’s always room for improvement,” Archie countered, “even for someone as good as you.”

Although she tried to hide it, Jellybean was clearly pleased by the complement, grin escaping when Jughead elbowed her side. She ate at the last of her ice cream as she fought away her embarrassment. 

“Juggy says that you’ve started writing music,” she says, changing the subject. “That one of the Pussycat’s songs is yours.” 

Jughead had been talking about him: hearing just that is enough to make his day. “I worked on it, but I can’t take credit for the whole thing.”

“Can I hear something you did write then?”

“Here?”

Jughead shrugged as he pushed his sundae, barely eaten, to his sister to dig into. “Pop Tate won’t mind, right?”

As if aware they were talking about them, Pop walked out of the kitchen towards the register as he Jughead called for him. “Won’t bother me.”

With no other patrons, Archie didn’t have much of an excuse so he pulled out his phone, fumbling to get his music player open. Hesitating, he turned to Pop again and asked, “Can you bring us another sundae?” 

Waiting for the ice cream gave Archie a few moments to psych himself up, and he felt a bit calmer by the time it arrived. He pushed it in front of Jughead just as he turned on the song so that his friend wouldn’t argue with him. For 3 minutes, his own voice echoed around the empty space of the shop as everything else was silent. 

No one said anything as the song trailed off, starting up again for a second before Archie stopped it. Jughead was looking down at his sundae like it was the most interesting thing on the planet, but Jellybean was staring right at him with an unreadable expression. 

“You’re good.” Jellybean said it like it was a concrete fact. “It’s song is sad, but it’s good.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re lucky Juggy,” Jellybean told her brother, “you’re going to be best friends with a famous musician. That’s way cooler than having a writer for a brother.”

“Writers are cool,” Archie defended even though he knew she was joking. “And I don’t even know if I’m good enough to be a musician, let alone a famous one.”

Jellybean rolled her eyes, but Archie was more interested in the pleased smile Jughead tried to hide when Archie defended him. When he looked back up at Jellybean, she raised her eyebrows as if to question what the deal was - she clearly didn’t know about their fight, which was a huge weight off of his chest: he doesn’t think he could take it if she was mad too. He was certain that even if he could get Jughead to forgive him, Jellybean would hold a grudge forever. His sheepish grin and Jughead’s sudden bout of shyness earned them rolled eyes from the preteen. 

“Don’t be stupid, of course you’re good. Fishing for compliments much?”

His pseudo-little sister who he’d played with and babysat all his life sounded so genuine, so unimpressed by his modesty, that the complement meant more than almost every encouragement so far. He had no idea what face he must be making but Jellybean gave him a confused look, the one she always gave them when she thought they were just too weird to believe. But beside her, Jughead poked at his ice cream and pretended he wasn’t looking at Archie too, calm in the way that he only was with his sister in their special booth at Pops. But the smirk hiding at the edge of his lips, just like the one he’d worn when they heard the Pussycats performed, hinted that things weren’t are as broken as he’d feared.

 

Mrs. Lynch-Musson a middle aged Korean woman with cracked, wrinkled skin and a voice like an old jazz singer. Archie has never been more terrified of anyone in his life. 

She’s a good therapist - Fred Andrews had made sure of that, reminding Archie again and again that if he didn’t feel comfortable with her, they could find her something else. She didn’t have that look adults get when you talk about yourself, like your age makes everything you say unimportant. In fact, she was such an attentive listener that Archie was fairly convinced that she not only remembered everything he said, but was also reading his mind. 

Monday was for talking about whatever she thought was important: those were the sessions that drained him, made him feel exposed like he’d pulled his skin to show her insides. Thursdays were for talking about his week and whatever pointless topics Archie came up with to occupy their 40 minute session. Even when he tried to pick the most trivial topic of conversation, it still felt like he was giving away things without knowing it. 

Their first Thursday session, Archie had mentioned Jughead during a story from his childhood and, with surgically precise but unassuming questions, had spilled the whole mess. It did not escape his notice that all ‘Jughead’ topics were moved to Mondays after that. 

“Did you see Jellybean’s play like you planned?” 

“Yeah, she was amazing. Like, professional level amazing.” 

“How does it make you feel to see her natural talent when you yourself have struggled with your music?”

It’s weird for Archie to even imagine being jealous of Jellybean. “I don’t - I remember watching West Side Story in my basement with her and Jughead, and she said she wanted to be Maria. She was 8 years old but you could tell she meant it. She’s been working for it ever since.” 

“A lot of people would say that, but not many of them would mean it.”

She’s looking at him, watching his response, but Archie can’t even tell what she’s seeing. He’s embarrassed, wants to contradict her but isn’t even sure what he’d say. Everytime he tries to contradict what Mrs. Lynch-Musson says, she asks him why. He’s yet to have a good answer. 

When Archie refuses to say anything, she starts up again. “You believe the best in people. That is not a weakness, even if people take advantage of it.”

The spectre of Miss Grundy (Geraldine, he still says in his mind) is always tucked away in Mrs. Lynch-Musson’s office, pressing at him even when he wants to forget. Even when he thinks of what his dad and his friends have told him, he sees her in his mind and isn’t certain he wouldn’t do it again. “I don’t-” he’s supposed to say something but doesn’t know what. “I never wanted to… she wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

“When you trust people, sometimes you make excuses for people, even when they don’t deserve it. That’s why you have friends to look out for you.”

He’s told her about Jughead confronting him in front of his house, when he tried to tell Archie to not trust Miss Grundy. At the time it had been disorienting, seeing Jughead after radio silence for months only for him to yell at him, accusing Grundy of using him. He’d chalked it up to his friends mistrustful nature, their fight but he could now see more clearly: Jughead had always protected him, even when he didn’t need it. He should have trusted that, at least. 

“I haven’t been a great friend lately.” 

Mrs. Lynch-Musson gave a half shrug, one of the few outward expressions of feeling she used. “You do not make the same excuses for yourself, do you?” 

Archie’s eyes are stinging. The tissue box, his enemy during these sessions, is waiting for him on the table beside the couch. He sniffs, glares, and grabs a handful. 

 

Archie didn’t really understand cars, but Betty always let him hang around when she worked on the cars in their garage. He had often taken advantage of her distraction to ramble or complain about his life. Today, he had just come from therapy again and just didn’t want to be alone, so Betty did a lot of the talking. 

“How was Jellybean?” she asked after hearing he’d gone to see her. She and Polly had looked after Jellybean growing up and, with Polly, Jellybean’s absence had started to take its toll. Without Veronica, Archie was sure she’d be having a really hard time. 

“Good. She was a great Dorothy in Wizard of Oz- like, crazy good.” 

Grabbing a bottle of windshield wiper fluid, she leaned back over the hood of the car.“God, I remember seeing her in ‘Princess and the Pea’ in 4th grade. She was so tiny.”

“She looks like her mom now.” A mini-Gladys Jones in everything but attitude really. 

“How is Mrs. Jones doing anyway?” 

Archie shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t see her. I think she’s working like, 3 jobs or something.” 

“Jeez. I don’t know how she does it.”

She could do it because she had to - they both knew that. But her hard work definitely deserved a little awe. Recognizing that this might be a good time to say something he needed to say, Archie said, “I told Jellybean about Jughead and the… house-”

“Homeless?”

“Homeless thing. Yeah.”

For a few moments no one said a word. After putting away some of her tools, Betty put down the hood and sat on it facing her friend. “How did she take it?”

There had been crying. And shouting, and more swearing than Archie had thought her capable of. Maybe she’d hung up on him. But she’d called back and apologized just as Archie tried to apologize himself. “She said she’d call some of their cousins who are still in Riverdale and see if any of them can help out.” 

“They have cousins here? Why didn’t he go there in the first place?”

“They’re not, like, ‘cousins’ cousins. It’s a Southside thing - you call your family friends ‘cousins’.” He doesn’t have to say outloud that when he’s talking about Southside, he’s talking about the Serpents. Their classmates may not remember (thankfully) but she grew up with Archie and the Jones’ kids, and had almost as many run ins with the gang as Archie. 

“Is that really a good idea?” 

“Not everyone on Southside is a bad guy. And he grew up there, he’s used to all of it.”

Betty had to concede to that. “Does Jughead know you told his sister?”

“When I checked my phone this morning I had 12 missed calls and a text reading ‘fuck you’.”

“Oh.” 

Archie still hadn’t deleted the text. He was telling himself that it was so he could keep Jughead’s new number, but whenever he opened his messaging app it was there on the top, the only text from his best friend since July 3rd. 

Probably sensing that her friend was beating himself up over it, Betty changed the subject. “I guess that explains why Veronica had to bail on our brunch plans this morning.” 

“Ouch, sorry.”

“Not your fault really.” It was clearly Archie’s fault but they already knew that. “I kind of guessed it was a Jughead thing. They’ve been hanging out a lot.” 

“Are you jealous?”

Archie hadn’t meant it seriously, but Betty’s blush and averted glance showed he’d hit closer to home than expected. “I’m not jealous. It’s just .. weird, you know? Like suddenly they’re best friends.”

It felt good that at least someone saw it like he did, even if they were being a little ridiculous. “Right? I don’t get it.” 

“Does that mean you’re jealous too?” Betty was still pink in the face and eager to embarrass him too.

“Veronica thought so. It just… it sucks that she’s all buddy-buddy with him and I still can’t stop messing things up.” 

“You’re not used to sharing him.” 

“It used to be easy.” 

Betty shrugged and said, “Growing up sucks,” with such clear empathy that Archie knew she felt the same. 

 

“You and your girlfriend fighting?”

Reggie wasn’t talking to him a lot these days. Since the whole captain debacle, Archie had been treading lightly and trying to show that he wasn’t changing his mind, prove he supported their new team captain. So far Reggie was still making him run extra laps but he was starting to sound friendlier when he ordered them. Definitely not friendly conversation level yet though. 

“My girlfriend?” As Archie tries to guess who he’s referring to he is surprised to find there are several possibilities. That had never been the case before. 

“Hot Topic. I thought you and Jones were back together again.”

While Reggie enjoyed poking fun at Jughead, he’d never asked about him before. It was weirdly friendly and therefore highly suspicious. “What about him?”

“I saw him glaring at you in the hall earlier. I mean, usually he’s all about pinning at a distance, but he was definitely plotting your death today. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up at the bottom of the lake with Jason.” 

Archie slammed his locker closed, no longer in humoring Reggie. “Shut up about Jughead. Say shit like that and people might start to believe it.”

Raising his hands in surrender, Reggie said, “Calm down red ranger, I’ll keep the murder jokes to a minimum if you’re really that worried. It’s not my fault that he dresses like an ad for unstable teens. Heard he told Trev he’s making a ‘murder board’ in the blue and gold office.” 

“He’s a reporter, of course he’s taking notes on the murder.” 

“I’m just saying, it’s morbid.” 

There isn’t much Archie can say about that. Thankfully, something made Reggie remember that he’d actually have to put a shirt on again before heading home and he left Archie alone. He was left in peace until they all headed out the door together, and Reggie caught up to him again outside. 

He put a hand on Archie’s shoulder to keep him from walking away. “Whenever I mess up, I usually buy them something they’ve been talking about. Shows you’ve been paying attention. They eat that schmaltzy shit right up.” 

“Sorry if I don’t take advice from someone who has a one week cut off for his girlfriends.” 

“Just trying to help.” 

Reggie walk away to join his friends as they walk towards the parking lot, but Archie stays behind by the gym doors. Was Reggie really trying to give Archie dating advice? Also, was it so easy to tell Jughead was pissed that Reggie noticed? 

It isn’t until Archie remembers the conversation that night that he realizes he forgot to say that he had Jughead weren’t dating. Also, Jughead wouldn’t be his girlfriend? Was that supposed to be an insult, or did Reggie not understand how relationships between men worked? That’s what happened when you got to skip sex ed for practice, he guessed. He definitely didn’t think anymore about Jughead and him dating. 

 

Veronica’s absence was glaring, at least to Archie, when they all meet up at Betty’s. No one else looks disturbed by it though. 

“You going to angst all day, or are you going to join us?” 

Betty’s voice is teasing, waving him over to where her and Kevin were sitting on her bed. She was painting her nails - a staple of girls night’s, she’d told him - while Kevin sprawled across the top of the bed, and the two had been gossiping since before he had arrived. Reluctantly, he slunk over. 

“You two seemed to be doing fine on your own,” he told them. 

“Well Archie Andrews might be above gossip, but the rest of us mortals are allowed to enjoy ourselves.” Kevin’s mock-serious tone was belied by his smirk - it had been a long time since Archie remembered Kevin last teased him. Ever since coming out in middle school, Kevin had seemed more like Cheryl and their other boy-crazy classmates, and less like a friend. 

It inspires Archie to do some teasing of his own. “You’re in a good mood.”

Betty raised an eyebrow and both she and Archie turned on Kevin with matching grins. Faced with their rapt attention, Kevin rolled his eyes.

“I’m not allowed to have a good week?”

“You took the same bio test we did: no one should be happy,” Betty tells him seriously. 

“You’ve been smiling since that last showing at the drive-in,” Archie added. “Did you meet someone?”

“Oh my god!” Betty stopped painting her nails, “You totally did! Ronnie mentioned you left her with Cheryl halfway through: she’s going to kill you when she finds you left her for a boy.”

“Which is why no one is telling her anything!” Kevin was horrified, and appropriately so. “I am not above using blackmail to keep your mouths shut.”

“We’ll keep your secret if you tell us who he is.”

“No deal.”

It wasn’t like Kevin to keep his conquests secret. When Betty looked ready to press the issue, Archie stepped in and said, “Kevin doesn’t have to tell us yet if he’s not ready. New relationships don’t need extra drama.”

“Surprising insight from someone who slept with their teacher.” Betty glared at Kevin, so he added, “Which is totally not something to joke about.”

“It’s fine.” It made his chest catch with fear and his skin crawl, but he’d gotten better at pretending he was over it. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“What happened wasn’t Archie’s fault,” Betty reminded Kevin. It was getting annoying, hearing that all the time.

“Find anyone new yet?” Kevin asked, half looking for gossip and half out of genuine interest. “There are a lot of girls who would be happy to be your rebound.”

“Not interested.”

“That’s fair.” Betty picked up her nail polish and got to work again, continuing, “It’s weird that everyone treats you so different now. I still remember you from last year, when all you wanted to do was hang out with Jughead and play video games in your basement.”

It wasn’t too long ago, but Archie huffs a laugh both at the memory and at Betty apparently forgetting about her own crush at the beginning of the year. But of course, their mention of Jughead caught Kevin’s attention.

“That happened between you and Jughead anyways? I remember you guys planning that road trip but I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

“I kind of bailed on him to see Geral-, Miss Grundy.”

“Ouch.” Another unimpressed look from Betty, this time accompanied by a jab in the side. “I mean, you can always try some other time right? You guys were what, driving around for a couple days? There’s no expiration date on some ‘On the Road’ style fun.” 

“Jughead loves camping, so we were going to drive around. find a new place to park and camp out every night. It was more ‘smores and movie watching under the stars’ than adventure.”

“That sounds adorable.” Betty was sincere of course, but it made Archie blush: who wanted to be called adorable? “You should totally still do that.” 

Kevin rolled onto his back and sighed dramatically. “That sounds more romantic than any date I’ve ever been on. Who knew you had it in you Andrews?” 

“Date?” Archie didn’t see how Kevin had jumped to dating all of a sudden - why everyone’s thoughts seemed to be going in that direction. “It wasn’t a date. It was a camping trip.” 

“Well yeah, I know that. But still.”

“Seriously?” he turned to Betty for backup, but she looked thoughtful. He did not need her thinking right now, he needed her to agree with him. 

“Well he’s not wrong,” Betty said after a few seconds. “Even if you didn’t mean for it to be, it still sounds nice.” 

“I wasn’t-” Huffing, Archie gave up on arguing the point. “I just wanted to make sure he’d have a good time. We were already a little awkward by then, so I thought … I don’t know, maybe it’d help.” 

Noticing the guilt in his tone, Betty leaned over to knock her shoulder against his. He smiled weakly back and swallowed the lump in his throat he always got now when he remembered it. His thoughts were interrupted when Kevin suddenly leaped up and accidentally rolled off the bed.

Kevin said something but it was muffled as he tried to pull himself from the mess of pillows on the floor. Once he climbed back on the bed, he had a weird grin on his face as he said, “You asked Jughead out on a date.” 

What? “What?”

“Hear me out,” Kevin almost fell again as he climbed towards them. “You saw your relationship was changing and your first instinct is to plan a trip, just the two of you, full of all of his favorite things? That just screams ‘romantic getaway’. And it totally explains why you bailed on him for Grundy.”

“What? That makes no sense.” 

“It totally makes sense.” 

Now both Archie and Kevin were looking at Betty to back them up. Glancing between the two, Betty bit her lip and made them wait a while as she finished her nails. 

“Well?” 

“I haven’t even done my second coat. Let me just-” 

“Betty,” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Seriously?” 

“I’m sorry. I just-” she glanced up at Archie and at once his face paled. “Kevin has a point. I mean-” she shrugged apologetically at Archie, who groaned and hid his face in his hands, “it would explain why you avoided Jughead all summer.” 

“I cannot believe you agree with him!” 

“You can’t argue with the truth. I always knew you were too pretty to only bat for the other team.” 

It is perfectly reasonable to take up a pillow and whack Kevin in the head to shut him up. Since Betty didn’t protest, Archie assumed she agreed. 

 

“I think I might have asked Jughead out on a date.” 

After watching Archie fidget for 10 minutes, Veronica had started to ignore him in favor of her milkshake. As soon as he speaks, her attention snaps back to him. 

“You think? When did this happen?” 

Archie could see her mentally trying to work out when he would have had to chance without her knowing about it. “Last June.”

The mental calculating stops. “You’re not sure if you asked him out… 3 months ago?” 

“Yeah.”

“Why are men always so weird?” Veronica pushes her empty milkshake glass to the side. “Explain to me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Archie is probably speeding through his explanation of last night, but he’s so embarrassed that if he stops, he’ll never be able to finish telling her. The people in the booth behind them probably think he’s insane. 

“Okay.” Then Veronica didn’t say anything else. 

“Okay?”

“I mean okay. Like, alright, they think you were trying to ask out Jughead. So what?” 

“What?” 

Pop Tate comes over with the burger Archie had ordered. For a mortified second, Archie thinks he heard their conversation, but he goes back to the kitchen as always. 

“Clearly this bugs you. What’s the big deal?” 

“I-” There is no good answer for that. It’s not the first time someone has made comments about his sexuality - hell, Kevin joked about it enough to make him pretty immune. And he’d always known that his friendship with Jughead had, back then, often confused outsiders. There was no reason for him to have come running to Veronica first thing in the morning, or to have been thinking about it all night. Hell, every night since that weird talk with Reggie.

“Do you think Jughead thought it was a date?” 

“What, no! I mean, I don’t know why he would.” 

“I’m really not seeing the problem then.” 

The problem is this expanding mass of anxiety in Archie’s chest, indescribable and eating him from the inside. It felt like his attempts to be friends with Jughead again, his search for him even when Jughead was clearly running away, was morphing into something he didn’t understand like all the keys coming together. 

“I… don’t know what would have happened if we’d gone on that trip.” It’s honesty, but it still feels like he’s missing something. “If I hadn’t gone with Miss Grundy, I don’t know what-” 

After a few moments, it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to say anymore than that. It prompted Veronica to grab a handful of fries off of his plate and start popping them into her mouth. 

“Maybe you’re scared you lost your chance?” She has like, 6 fries in her mouth but she still looks glamorous, like she has some weird rich people superpower. 

“I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m even saying.” He would rest his head against the table except his plate was in the way. Instead he ate his burger while also clearly going through some internal struggle. Between bites, he adds, “I’m not even into guys like that.” 

“That’s what everyone thinks until they are.” It’s said with the wisdom of experience. “First crush is the worst.” 

“I do not have a crush.” Hearing himself, Archie can tell how petulant he sounds. It makes him want to sink into the booth until the tight feeling in his chest goes away. 

“Of course,” Veronica says in her most condescending tone. With one hand, she reaches over to pat his hand like he’s a child, ignoring his glare. Then, she snatched up another handful of fries and grinned, unbothered by Archie’s internal struggle, as she shoved them all into her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next (and hopefully last) chapter will come as soon as possible. will contain: excess spanish, joaquin, matchmaking (in multiple directions), and things will come to some kind of conclusion, or as much of a conclusion as high school ever gets.
> 
> I love tumblr friends: you can find me at dragtimdrake.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they all just try to pull themselves together again to get something that looks pretty damn close to happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here! I am very proud to have finished this honestly. This chapter definitely isn't as long as you guys would probably like, but it feels right? We're back to Veronica's POV and she can only know so much about Jughead and Archie getting together. I actually rewrote the entire thing after last night's episode and I just didn't want to drag it out. God I'm so self conscious. Please don't hate me.

He doesn’t tell her himself, which is almost worse than hearing that Jughead Jones was going back to live with his father. She hears it from Kevin, of all people (and how does he know about that anyways?). Her fury takes her all the way across the train tracks and right up to the door of the Jones’ trailer. 

“Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third, open the door this instant.” She’s been knocking furiously, and even kicks the bottom of the door for effect. “I don’t care if I have to climb in through a window, I’ll-” 

A voice from behind her asks, “You lost?” 

Spinning around, she sees two guys she’d never seen before, even if they looked to be her age. And she’d remember seeing them: apparently, on the right people gang leather-chic looked pretty damn good. 

“I’m not lost.” The presumption is a little insulting, even if her shoes probably cost more than their wardrobes combined. “I’m looking for Jughead Jones, you seen him?” 

The shorter of the two boys steps to the side and speaks to his companion in Spanish, expecting she won’t understand. “Since when has Jughead had the game to pull something like that?”

Typical men she thinks, rolling her eyes. Veronica stops them before they can keep talking like she isn’t even there, telling them in clear Spanish, “You should be more careful: rich girls can be latina too.” 

The chatty one looked properly cowed but the other one actually looked embarrassed, a little pink coming to his cheeks. Uncrossing his arms, he steps in closer with his hands up and goes back to English. “I’m sorry. Eduardo hasn’t been housetrained yet.” He winces as his friend punches his arm but continues. “You’re looking for Jughead?” 

“Yeah, do you know where he is?” 

“Actually, I do. I’ll show you.” 

Eduardo the obnoxious looks ready to complain but his friendly companion gestures for her to follow. Casting a wary glance at the trailer - bottle lining the windows, unrecognizable garbage around the door - she follows him further into the trailer park. 

“So, do you two go to school together?” 

“We’re both at Riverdale High. Did you graduate already?” 

He snorts. “Dropped out last year. What do I need English class for around here?” 

They’re coming up towards what remains of a playground. Only two of the swings are functional, but sitting on top of one of the climbing structures is Jughead, leg swinging down between the metal bars and a book in his hand. 

Her guide calls out in Spanish: “Jay, you have a visitor.” 

Jughead turns towards them and seems genuinely surprised to see Veronica. She waves a hand like he’s far off in the distance, and asks, “May I approach?”

“Proceed with caution,” he tells her, but that isn’t a ‘no’, technically.

She turns to her guide. “Thanks for your help. I’m lucky I ran into you.” She even remembers to not try and shake his hand, which she’s learning is weird among other people her age. 

“It’s not safe to be here alone, even for strong latinas.” He smirks, and it’s more charming than she would have expected. “Names Joaquin. Nice to meet you.” 

As he leaves, probably to meet back up with his friend Eduardo, she approaches the climbing dome. She tests her shoes first and, when it becomes clear that she won’t get anywhere with them, pulls them off and leaves them with her purse on the ground. It’d probably been 8 years since she’d been on a playground but she still could climb her way up with minimal trouble. 

“Of all the jungle gyms, in all the playgrounds, you had to come to mine.”

“Well Bogie, I’ve been looking all over for you. A little birdie told me that you were staying with your father again so I wanted to see for myself. Isn’t that the sort of thing you tell friends?”

He looked away at the cloudy sky and answered without looking at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want people to know…”

Know how they were living. Know how much they’d lost. Know that he’d gone back to his father again. Lots of things he wouldn’t want anyone to know. Veronica looked around them at the decaying playground, the trailers and the clothes lines fluttering around the. If you didn’t know, you would never believe this was part of Riverdale. 

“It’s kind of peaceful up here,” she commented. 

“We used to hang out here after school.”

“Have you talked to Archie?” 

He shrugged without throwing off his balance, proving he had far more skills than Veronica who was holding onto the bars with both hands. “He’s been texting me.”

“So he doesn’t know you’re back here?”

“I can’t stay here every night.” He doesn’t elaborate on why, continuing, “And I’m not into telling him I’ve been switching between my dad’s couch and sleeping in a closet at school.” 

As always, his tone dares her to comment on his living situation. She’s not stupid enough to miss his stubborn pride, his constant refusal to take help from any of them. There was no point in arguing with him, so she just let it go and tried to ignore the aching feeling it gave her to do so. 

“You hungry?” she asks instead. 

For the first time since she found him up here, he looks at her in the eye again. There’s a smile on his otherwise exhausted face. “When am I not?” 

“Then I vote we go Pop’s.”

He climbs down in an instant and she follows more slowly behind him. After waiting for her to put on her shoes, they make their way out, colliding with kids rushing out to play after school. They chirp and cheer in a mess of Spanish, Portuguese, French and English to each other and you can hear them all the way out of the trailer park. 

 

The variety show shouldn’t have been a surprise: it was an important part of high school according to all the TV shows Veronica had seen. And when Archie lets her in on his act - she can hardly contain her excitement. 

“Did you hear : Archie is going to play in the talent show after all! And I’m singing with him!” 

Jughead closes his locker door louder than necessary. “It’s a variety show. And no, I didn’t know about that. Congratulations.” 

The brisk dismissal dims her excitement, but she’s not going to let his bad mood spoil this for her. “He’s been practicing with Valerie, and you should hear him: he’s amazing. We’re going to be amazing.” 

“Of course, he’s been practicing with Valerie. I’ve seen them in the student lounge together. Apparently he even goes to the Pussycat’s rehearsals.” 

It’s not hard to identify the source of his bitterness. “Are you jealous?” she asks, surprised. 

“Fuck off.” 

For all of his dark humor and cynicism, Jughead wasn’t one to swear. She raised a perfectly formed eyebrow. “Touchy.” 

“Please fuck off?” He started down the hall to his next class, weaving through the crowd of students with the skill of a professional outcast. She can hardly keep up. 

“What is with you?” she tried to grab his shoulder but he shrugged it off. “The Valerie thing was just a joke.” 

He stopped suddenly and the students just flowed around them. “Well I’m not laughing. Do you know that he met her three weeks ago? Three. Weeks.” It’s like he’s curling in on himself, making himself smaller. “I thought we were … getting better. But he stopped texting, and every time I see him he’s with her.” 

There’s a tint of desperation in his voice mixed with frightened incredulity. There are real emotions at play, which she hadn’t been expecting, and she doesn’t know what to say. An instinct now, she leads them into the student lounge and buys him a soda just so she feels like she’s helping. 

“So…” she sits down in the chair next to him, and tries to make a joke. “That’s no to the talent show then? Not even to see your BFF Ronnie?” 

Jughead drops his backpack onto the ground which, she notes, is infinitely heavier than any student’s should be. “Betty and I have plans that night.”

He says it casually, as if Veronica wouldn’t have noticed the sudden team up between Betty and Jughead these past few days. And Betty was hardly around anymore anyways: the only time she saw Betty when she wasn’t scheming with her new best friend Jughead was during cheerleading practice. 

“Looks like you two have been getting along pretty well lately.”

There’s that spark of meanness she recognizes in his eyes for a split second before he responds, “Working on the investigation has kind of made us… closer than before.” Why did he say ‘closer’ like that, like he was hiding something? “She said she was sorry that she couldn’t see you perform.”

Turnabout is fairplay, even if it sucked. She should have known better than to poke an angry Jughead and not expect him to bite back. He probably didn’t even know that 10 minutes later she was going to walk in on Valerie and Archie and learn that she wasn’t needed anymore. She was still thinking about his words when she went to find Josie, watching out of the corner of her eye Betty and Jughead by their lockers. 

Betty never remembered to tell Veronica she wouldn’t be able to make it to see the show.

 

“I totally misread this. I am so sorry.”

Lucky for them, only Veronica spots the awkward attempt at a kiss. Valerie looks mortified and Archie is still too shocked to respond. Veronica can’t tell which one of them her second-hand embarrassment is for. 

When Valerie starts to pull away - probably trying to make a run for it - Archie snaps back into the moment. “No, Val, I’m the one that should be sorry. I didn’t realize-”

“I’m getting mixed signals here. Sometimes you seem into it but other times I could pull my top off and you wouldn’t notice.” Archie turns bright red. “Maybe let a girl down gently next time, okay? Before she makes a fool out of herself.”

“I’m sorry if I led you on. I didn’t mean to.”

Valerie shrugged, remarkably calm. “I guess you were just really into the music. That’s cool but like, I’m going to go find Josie, alright? I’ll call you… soon. I just need a few days.”

And Valerie left, walking away from the kids all celebrating with their parents and friends, while Archie stayed rooted to his spot. Veronica made her presence known.

She puts her hand on his shoulder, aware that they’d been fighting these past few days but wanting to offer some support at least. “You alright there Archie-kins?” 

“A girl just kissed me and I didn’t like it.”

“Not exactly what Katy Perry promised?”

For a moment it looks like he wants to roll her eyes at him, but he’s too nice and too dazed to go through with it. “Jughead and Betty didn’t make it to the show, did they?” 

“Beautiful girl kisses you and that’s the first thing you think of? Wow, that’s pretty telling if you ask me.”

The blush, having faded a little, sprang up again in full form. But in a rare moment of perceptibility, he said, “I’m sorry Betty couldn’t make it. I asked my dad, and he filmed both of our acts so we can show the others. I can send it to you.” 

It wasn’t the same, but Veronica could recognize a kind gesture when she saw it. “Thanks Archie. Why don’t we go find your dad and we can all celebrate.”

“All of us?” Archie was not unaware of Veronica’s less than kind feelings towards his father and her mother’s relationship. 

“I think I can hold my tongue long enough for Pops.”

She leads them towards their parents waiting at the end of the hall, pushing the angry bile in her throat at the memory of what her mother had done. They deserved at least one night of peace, didn’t they?. 

 

There is no calm before the storm in Riverdale. It’s a constant shower of awful, one thing rolling right into the next. Like her shit with her mother wasn’t enough of a problem: now she was visiting friends in jail. Just the sight of the bars on a cell was enough to make her light headed, but she pushed away the bad associations and came as soon as she could. 

“I didn’t do it.”

“Of course you didn’t, why would you even say that?” 

Whatever they’d been asking him about had clearly shaken him: Jughead looked paler than ever and was twitching with nerves. “Is my dad here?”

Why he expected anything from his father she’d never know, but she got to be the bearer of bad news. “Not yet.”

He looked way towards the wall and stared at it for a moment, like he was trying to pull himself together. He didn’t pretend to be surprised by the news. “Does everyone know?”

There was more bad news too. “Sherif Keller gave you a pretty spectacular parade of shame down the main hallway. Cheryl’s probably tweeting about it as we speak,” Veronica admitted. 

“He knows that I was in an accident the night of the 4th, and as soon as they can get a lawyer down here they’re going to start asking about the weekend of the 11th. I can’t-” It’s unclear what exactly he cannot do: can’t give an alibi, can’t take the interrogation, the stares, the rumors. It’s probably a combination of everything. 

Veronica offers the only comfort she can. “Mr. Andrews is already here to see you. Archie called and he came as soon as he could.”

Fred Andrews, for all of his faults, took Jughead’s safety and wellbeing just as seriously as his own son’s. Last she’d seen him, he’d made some story for Sheriff Keller about Jughead working for him the weekend of the 11th. 

“Does Archie…?”

That Jughead could think Archie would suspect him of Jason’s murder, that their friendship was so torn, made Veronica’s heart sink. Whatever the police had said to him was getting to him. 

“He knows you had nothing to do with this.” 

That gets a snort, maybe laughter, maybe bitterness. He shifts back in his seat. “I had to go to juvie when I was a kid for trying to burn down the elementary school.” He watches for her shocked expression and then continues. “Archie refused to believe I did it. Pushed Dilton Doyle into a sandbox for implying I did it on purpose. But when I saw his face in the hall as they led me out… I wasn’t sure he’d believe me this time.” 

She reached out across the table for his hand which, after a moment, he slowly put in hers. Squeezing it as tightly as she can, as reassuring as possible, she says. “Well he’s right outside trying to get you out of here. He knows you’re innocent. And I’m not losing another person to jail. You’re getting out of here.” 

He sniffs, head bowed so she can’t see his face. He squeezes back.

 

In the end, Veronica isn't there. After talking to Jughead, she had to get back home so Betty tells her what happens. 

Jughead Jones is walking towards his father and away from the Andrews. Fred Andrews, Betty tells her, looks impossibly tired. But Archie - he looks broken. 

“Don't.” 

Archie may not have meant for anyone to hear him but they do. Jughead pauses but doesn't turn around. 

There were tears in Archie's eyes. Everyone else had managed to stay dry eyed but him. He spoke again. “Please come home with us.” 

Betty hadn't understood what was happening, but Veronica had a guess. Archie Andrews was watching his best friend walk away from him. Nothing he'd tried had been enough to keep Jughead safe, to make him happy again. And now he had to watch Jughead walk away to a home that no amount of love could fix. 

So she had a bit of a guess. Apparently Jughead had finally turned around and stared at his crying friend like he couldn't understand what he was seeing. Even Fred Andrews looked confused. 

“I-” he'd wavered. Made an aborted step forward but pulled away. 

And that is when Archie rushed the few feet between them and pulled Jughead into a hug. The two crumbled together and Betty heard Jughead crying now, quick shaky breaths mixed with Archie's new mantra. 

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” 

The two didn't break apart for a while apparently. Betty and Fred Andrews just had to watch awkwardly as the two boys whispered to each other, never letting go. No one noticed FP Jones walk away. 

 

They sit across from each other in the booth: Jughead on his favorite side and Veronica on the other. Pop delivered their burgers with a friendly smile like always. 

“So…?” 

Jughead raises an eyebrow, a look mixing condescension and disinterest perfected after years of practice. “So what?”

“Don’t be a jerk, spill. Things are good with you and Archie?”

Unlike his new beau, Jughead didn’t blush or get embarrassed when she asked the question. He shrugged, “We’re fine.” 

“You faker. You think I can’t see through you.” She waved a fry at him accusingly. “You’re happy.”

She can see the tugs of a smile on his lips even as he tries to keep his face indifferent. Even the way he holds himself is different: his shoulders looked relaxed, his posture no longer stiff from tension and exhaustion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says before digging into his burger in order to look occupied. 

“Have you seen Archie? He’s so happy its disgusting: it’s like looking directly at the sun he’s so lovesick. Frankly, it’s offensive to all us single people to have to look at his sappiness.”

It’s a slip up that Jughead immediately takes advantage of. “Speaking of sappy, have you talked to Betty today?”

It is not fun to be on the other side of those kinds of attacks. She tries not to squirm and answers in her most casual tone. “As it happens, we’re grabbing dinner tonight.”

“Grabbing dinner like a date?”

Was he purposefully trying to torture her? “Friends go out to dinner all the time.”

“But are you sure?” He pauses to drink some of his milkshake and let her stew a bit. “Did she look nervous?”

Betty had stuttered through the whole thing, and actually wiped her palms on her jeans. “... No.” 

The door to Pop’s opened and she jumped, like Betty was going to just suddenly appear just because they were talking about her. But it was Archie, apparently picking up food for his dad. After putting in the order, he made a beeline to their booth. 

“Hey,” he nodded at Veronica. “Morning Jug.” And then he actually kissed Jughead on the cheek, like Jughead was some blushing virgin. 

At the very least, Jughead had the blushing down. He squirmed but didn’t protest, avoiding Veronica’s smug look but also moving in closer to Archie until they were pressed right up against each other. Archie just had that ridiculous smile, like he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. 

“What are your plans for the day Arch?” Veronica asked teasingly. 

“Not much. Probably hit the booksale at the Southside library.” 

“They’re having a booksale?” Jughead turned to look at his boyfriend. “Since when?”

“Your cousin Tiaga was talking about, remember?” Archie looked amused. “Your cousin the librarian? I thought you’d want to stop by.” 

“Since when do you call my cousins?” 

Archie actually looks a little embarrassed now, and said, “I called when we didn’t know where you were staying. Jellybean said Tiaga had offered to let you stay.” 

“My own sister, a snitch. Whatever happened to blood is thicker than water?” 

“It was always a misquote I’m afraid,” Veronica pointed out, amused by Jughead’s sudden turn to dramatics. This was Veronica’s first real glimpse at Jughead&Archie, the epic duo that had already fallen apart by the time she got to Riverdale. Sure, she’d only known them as separate people, but they both looked so happy together. Explained why they’d both been so messed up when apart. 

Archie’s phone, which he’d put onto the counter, buzzed, shaking the table. He barely looked at it before he asked, “Do you guys have any idea why I’ve been getting texts from Betty all morning about her outfit today? Since when do I remember what she’s wearing?” 

Veronica couldn’t decide between pleased and embarrassed, leaning to hide her face behind her hair. And Jughead, the asshole that he was, burst out laughing. 

 

There are things you don't tell your friends. 

Jughead doesn't complain when Archie tugs off his hat and starts mindlessly playing with his hair. The two are scrunched together on Archie’s bed, Archie with one headphone in, listening over new tracks while Jughead yawned and watched movies on his laptop. Shoved between them and the wall was a bowl of popcorn to keep it from falling (“it's safety is more important than ours Archie”.)

Dozing off even as the frames of Vertigo flicker, enticing, he's surprised when Archie starts shifting down the bed. A slightly cold nose presses suddenly on his neck. 

“Is this okay?” Even half asleep, Archie stops and asks before doing anything. It's both endearing and ridiculous. 

Jughead does think about it: Archie is pressed all against his back and Jughead can feel the warmth radiating from him. It was so foreign, Jughead couldn't tell if he liked it. 

“... yeah,” he decides. The little huffs on his neck as Archie breathes are distracting but in a new way, like he could get lost in that feeling alone. 

Archie hums with contentment and slings his free arm across Jughead's waist. Another surprise, but not unpleasant 

Only 10 minutes later, Fred Andrews walked by and saw them: curled together like they had as boys. Except now, instead of sprawled limbs they were pressed together like two bookends, holding each other up. 

He closes their door and, as soon as they're out of earshot, whistles to himself as he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it yo. 
> 
> Actually, I lied. I am writing another thing that is kind of a sequel from Jughead's POV. However, it is going to involve a sex poitive-asexual Jughead, bordering on almost demisexual Jughead. If that is completely not what you are into then enjoy this story as is. If you're willing to read a fic that goes into serious detail about asexual/demisexual experiences in sex, navigating relationships, and smutty fluff than stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started writing about the epic friendship between Veronica and Jughead, but it's completely not that anymore really. I have no idea what's happening. Or, I do, but this has had to be drastically changed as new episodes come out. It's a hybrid of canon and some elements that only kind of violate canon. If anything doesn't make sense, let me know: it's unbeta-ed and may contain errors from my dozen attempts to change this. 
> 
> tumblr


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